1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer control device having an improved clearing capability for cleaning a buffer memory into which print data received from a host computer is developed. The invention also relates to a method of controlling a printer to effectively clear the buffer memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a printer control device does not develop newly received print data into a buffer memory until a part or whole of the storage region of the buffer memory into which previous print data is developed is not cleared. The buffer memory clearing operation is necessary to prevent the previous print data from being printed together with the new print data. A part of the previous print data will be printed if it remains in a region of the buffer memory where the new print data does not extend.
It takes a relatively long period of time to clear the whole region of the buffer memory or a part of the buffer memory into which the previous print data was developed precedent to the development of new print data. Increasing the speed of cleaning operation requires a complicated control. Therefore, it is difficult to increase throughput.